Winged Words

At a Republican reception in Detroit, Wendell Willkie learned he was being picketed by America First disciples of rabble-rousing Gerald L. K. Smith, promptly issued a statement: "I want to tell you how proud and happy that makes me feel. I doubt if anyone ever was so fortunate in the nature of his opposition."

As he praised bee-busy workers at a Portland, Ore. launching, Rear Admiral Emory Scott Land, salty chairman of the Maritime Commission, was reminded of a jingle. Hastily doctored transcriptions of the talk (broadcast later):

"There once was a queen bee,

God bless her soul,

Who knew nothing whatever

About birth control.

And that is the reason why, you see,

There are so many sons of b."

Allegiances

Yare Vera Zorina, 26, born Eva Brigitta Hartwig in Kristiansand, Norway, became a U.S. citizen. "This is what I've waited for all my life," said she.

Fritz Kreisler, 68, became a U.S. citizen. The Vienna-born violinist had described himself to Immigration authorities as a French citizen; after the Nazi coup in Austria he had gone to France, won honorary citizenship there.

Out again was in-again-out-again Jan Valtin, 1941's best-selling tell-all (Out of the Night). The German-born ex-agent for both the Gestapo and Ogpu (TIME, Oct. 6, 1941, et seq.), onetime California jailbird who was pardoned just before Pearl Harbor, then jugged on Ellis Island six months ago as an undesirable alien, was freed on parole, faded back into the night.

"I shall . . . [enjoy] the ecstasy of the starry stillness of an Arizona desert night or viewing the scarlet glory of her blossoming cactus," cried oratorical Henry Fountain Ashurst at the finish of his Senatorial career two years ago. For 29 years in Washington the sesquipedalian Senator had dreamed aloud about the home state he so rarely saw. Last week the Arizona Tax Commission had a demand from him for a $72 refund. A year ago, he pointed out, he had established residence in the District of Columbia.

Grandes Dames

The Library of Congress asked Gertrude Atherton, 85, rejuvenated novelist (Black Oxen, 38 other books), for a bale of her manuscripts. She sent them.

Queen Mary celebrated her 76th birthday in a tiny West Country village in England by going to a servicemen's concert, receiving flowers from local children.

Julia Marlowe, 76, romantic stage heroine of 40-odd years ago (Sothern & Marlowe), was up & about after three weeks abed recovering from injuries suffered in a fall. Refusing to admit reporters to her Manhattan hotel suite, she sent word by her maid that she wanted to "have nothing to do with the outside world."

Queen Wilhelmina, 62, made her third transatlantic air hop, joined Princess Juliana in Ottawa, planned to stay awhile and get acquainted with four-month-old Margriet Francisca, her new granddaughter.

Hearts & Cauliflowers

In a White Plains, N.Y. divorce court, Coast Guard Lieut. Commander Jack Dempsey sat deadpanned and massaged the knuckles of one fist; his wife, full-fashioned, ex-Musicomedienne Hannah Williams, in a beige suit, tan corduroy coat, red gloves, red-heeled shoes and considerable eye shadow, fiddled with her sunglasses and turned various colors. A cook, an elevator boy, a fight manager, a maid took their turns on the witness stand, told stories of parties at redheaded Hannah's apartment.

One witness was known as "Harry the Horse" Goldman. "It had just begun daybreak," he related, when he had found Hannah and Fight Manager Benny Woodall asleep together; so he just quietly "left out." Hannah's attorney burned him with a remark about narcotics. "I'm no neurotic," snapped Harry the Horse. "I never touch the stuff." Another witness told of the times he had seen Hannah and ex-Lightweight Champion Lew Jenkins together. Another reported on Dempsey's front-door entrances as Hannah's visitors left by the side door.

For two days witnesses for Dempsey paraded across the stand, then Hannah had a nervous collapse, got a four-day adjournment. Said Dempsey's attorney: "You haven't heard anything yet." Defense counsel started looking for a witness of their own, one "Yvette," who had told some tales about Plaintiff Dempsey and then vanished. Promptly Yvette's attorney turned up to swear that she had been talking through her hat.

Offstage were Joan and Barbara Dempsey, eight and six. They were the purse.

Established in Reno for the stated purpose of divorcing the former Marguerite Lawler Branyen of Minneapolis is a "Mr. Holkar," who married her four years ago with a high-flown flourish: "Without mental peace I cannot properly discharge my duties as a ruler." Slim, sleek "Mr. Holkar" is His Highness Maharajadhiraj Raj Rajeshwar Sawai Shree Yeshwant Rao Holkar Bahadur ("His Highness the Lord Paramount, King of Kings, one-quarter-better-than-anyone-else, beautiful King Shepherd, Brave Warrior"), fabulously wealthy Maharaja of Indore, 34, ruler of some 1,325,000 souls, possessor of the first air-conditioned palace in India, honorary deputy sheriff of Los Angeles County and honorary captain of Los Angeles police. He arrived in the U.S. last fall for "urgent medical attention."

Home Front

Muriel McCormick Hubbard, granddaughter of the late John D. Rockefeller and of Harvester King Cyrus McCormick, was on K.P. duty with the WAACs at Fort Devens. She found the food "delicious, the work interesting and the routine enjoyable," hoped for an overseas assignment.

Bing Crosby was turning his million-dollar Del Mar race track in California into a "feeder" factory for a plane plant.

Lewis E. Lawes, Sing Sing's famed warden, who retired in 1941 with his eye on farming, literature, Hollywood, radio, was up to his ears in war work: needling prisons into greater farm production, getting model prisoners freed (and ex-cons okayed) for service in the armed forces.

Paulette Goddard, in cerise bows and a drapy peasant costume, was putting in corn and chickens at her swimming-pooled New York State farm. She told a reporter about the chickens: "They're red . . . I gather eggs every day." She also has a strawberry patch, thinks that "everyone should take up farming; it's the right thing to do."

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